Jeremiah Crutchley was born on 19th May 1915, the son of Thomas Henry and Clara Crutchley. He was born at 110 Field Road in Bloxwich in the type of red brick terraced house built en mass for the working classes of late Victorian England. The house, probably about fifteen years old when Jeremiah was born, still stands. A picture of the property is presented above.
Jeremiah's father, Thomas Henry, according to family recollections, was a locksmith of some repute within the local community. He conducted his business from a small workshop at the rear of his home at 110 Field Road. He would have repaired locks and manufactured new ones in an era on the verge of mass production.
Jeremiah's mother, Clara (nee Somerfield), in common with most women of her era stayed at home to care for her family. A career that was no less arduous than any other that may have been available to her at that time. Her marriage to Thomas Henry was already in its fourteenth year when she gave birth to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah inherited his Christian name from his grandfather, who in turn inherited it from his father. Jeremiah is the English version of the Hebrew name Yirmeyahu, the Jewish 6th century prophet who predicted the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The name means 'exalted by God' and is sometimes synonymous with predictions of dire events, so much so that any prediction of doom is still known as a 'jeremiad'.
Were it not for the cruel hand of fate, Jeremiah would most likely have followed the same circle of life that his father and grandfather had before him. He would have attended school until he was fourteen and then left to learn a trade. Probably he would have married, lived locally and then reared his own children. Jeremiah was destined not to face the abject horrors of a world at war for the second time in forty years, a fate that awaited millions of his generation. A fate that awaited his younger brother Thomas Henry junior. |